Freezable finger food for 9mo??

[MrsBumblebee]

DS (coming up to 9 months) has so far mainly been fed on pureed/mashed meals with a bit of finger food on the side (e.g. fruit, toast etc). Recently, though, he's started to get quite crabby at mealtimes (still eats anything and everything, but shrieks between mouthfuls), and I suspect he's getting fed up with being spoonfed, as he doesn't do this when he's feeding himself. SO, I want to increase the amount of finger food he has, and do whole meals this way. There are loads of great ideas on MN, but a lot of them seem to be for fresh food. I guess I've got really used to the convenience of just grabbing him a meal out of the freezer, and I don't want to have to start cooking from scratch for every meal. So, does anyone have good ideas for finger food 'meals' or part meals that I can make in advance and freeze? In particular, does anyone have suggestions for how to give meat as finger food at this stage, before the molars come through? I really don't want to start giving him processed food like sausages, as we've avoided it so far.

Fishcakes, falafel, potato cakes, fish fingers, lentil or bean burgers, meatballs. That said, dd ate everything we did with her hands - pasta, curry, chilli, etc (the latter two with plenty of slightly overcooked rice).

we buy proper butchers' sausages with ingredients I feel happy about - dd loves them. Anything that starts as mince eg burgers, meatballs, koftas is better than things that start as lumps of meat. DD loved to gum strips of steak but not much went down.

Lots of things can be rolled into finger-foodable balls, including anything with mash or pulses in.

And don't forget many of the recipes on MN for lentil wedges etc are freezable or at least fridgeable.

I will be watching this thread with interest! DS (same age) is BLW but I find it a lot more work than just grabbing a meal from the freezer. The only things I do straight from the freezer are fishfingers (I know it seems a bit urgh for a baby, but the Birds Eye ones have no icky additives) or frozen fish fillets... you can snap the end off them whilst still frozen and you can cook from frozen (they steam in about 5 mins). Also Quorn burgers and Quorn chicken-style pieces are cook from frozen and very quick. You can always make ahead and freeze certan sandwiches, too.

Seriously - shove pasta in a bowl with sauce (from the freezer), or veg chilli with rice, or curry and rice, dahl, etc - you'd be amazed what they can manage with their hands. And at the mess afterwards!

If I am running late I let my 9mo eat his weetabix BLW stylee in the mornnings - it's not as bad as it sounds and he loves it.

Oh loads of stuff. Tuna pasta bake in batches, just chop it up. Lasagne, spag bol, cottage pie, chicken in a tom sauce or white sauce. You can freeze portions of mash potato too.

Omlettes are a very quick and easy meal for a baby, just sprinkle with cheese and chop.

Sorry just read stop op properly. My baby wont let me feed him anything either so he gets all of the above to eat with his hands. He sort of uses a spoon but not really sucessfully yet.

It is messy, put a big mat under the highchair.

Sorry just read stop op properly. My baby wont let me feed him anything either so he gets all of the above to eat with his hands. He sort of uses a spoon but not really sucessfully yet.

It is messy, put a big mat under the highchair.

LG&T - got any recipes for the tuna pasta bake? Could my 7 month old eat it? He's into stuffing his own food into his mouth at the mo too!

Sweet potato wedges - roast em, freeze em, zap em

chicken gougons - put chicken breast is food processor with some grated cheese and maybe some softened onion and/or garlic. Dip in flour & egg and then some breadcrumbs. Freeze, defrost, cook in 20 mins.

I just cook up some pasta, any shape although bows cut nicely in half. The tiny ditallini pasta is good too.

Fry and onion and garlic clove till soft, add a tin of toms (chopped ones, the plum ones are a bit hard on the ends) and stir in a handful of basil or any dried herbs you like. Simmer for 10 mins or so and add the tin of tuna and a tin of sweetcorn.

Drain the pasta pour over the tom sauce and transfer to an ovenproof dish, sprinkle liberally with cheese and bake for 20 mins.

Cool and freeze in portions. It is quite chunky but blitz a bit if you think he needs it. It is red but quite solid for them to eat themselves.

TC the sweet potato and chicken are huge faves in this house, i do it with fish too.

I find soaking the chicken in butter milk makes it vey tender for little mouths to chew on too.

Thanks very much for all these - I'll be trying some this weekend! So far the only finger foods he'll eat are things he can actually pick up in his fist, which makes it a bit tricky. If I give him a bowl of something more gungy (like risotto or tiny pasta stars with sauce), he stuffs his hand in it but then just shakes his fist all over the floor, without ever actually putting his hand in his mouth. Maybe I just need to let him practise more [she says, cringing inwardly at the thought of the mess...]??

Any more ideas most welcome!

Oh, and we do have one success story so far for anyone looking at this thread for ideas - we did Raisin Wheats for breakfast this morning and they went down a treat. No salt or sugar, and they're perfect fist size. Just soak in milk until squidgy.

I made some mini broccoli and stilton quiches last week and they froze very well and ds loved them!

Oh, and we do have one success story so far for anyone looking at this thread for ideas - we did Raisin Wheats for breakfast this morning and they went down a treat. No salt or sugar, and they're perfect fist size. Just soak in milk until squidgy.

Big pasta much better - fusilli or spirali they can get hold of and bite/gum to death. Penne can be a bit tricky for beginners!

taday I did a pasta bake - cooked penne, some steamed cod, peas, bit of fried leek, onion, garlic, chees sauce on top and some mash, in the oven. Went down a treat. I whizzed some of it with the mash potato to make which he just grabbed from the plate and shovelled in. Also gave him some of the whole penne to pick up too. The mess is off putting, I know. My tip is to wrap them in a large muslin cloth before you start if at beginning of day and don't want them to get too messy. Pelican bib on top and damp cloth to hand. At the end, flip everything up into the bib, muslin in the wash, damp cloth to wipe down. Job done. Luckily he doesn't throw stuff yet as I guess that could be worse ....